The Social Engineering Phishing Assessment conducted by Risksols is a targeted security evaluation designed to test an organization’s human layer of defense—its employees—by simulating real-world phishing attacks in a controlled, ethical, and measured manner. The objective is to identify vulnerabilities in staff awareness, evaluate the effectiveness of existing cybersecurity training programs, and help organizations build a culture of vigilance against social engineering threats.
This assessment begins with a planning phase, where Risksols works closely with key stakeholders to define the scope, objectives, and acceptable risk level for the campaign. This includes identifying target departments, user groups (such as executives, HR, or finance staff), and determining the type of phishing scenarios to be tested—ranging from basic credential harvesting attempts to more sophisticated spear-phishing emails containing malicious links or attachments. Risksols ensures that all test parameters are clearly outlined, and that safety mechanisms are in place to prevent unintended consequences.
In the reconnaissance phase, Risksols gathers publicly available information (OSINT) about the target organization and its employees, such as job titles, email formats, company news, and social media activity. This intelligence is used to craft convincing, context-specific phishing emails that resemble real-world threats. The emails may appear to come from trusted vendors, internal departments, or even known colleagues, leveraging psychological manipulation techniques like urgency, fear, reward, or authority to increase the likelihood of user interaction.
The first step in any assessment is defining its scope and determining what is a legitimate target, and what is off-limits. Clear and effective communication in this phase makes the rest of the assessment go smoother and we get better results.
The next and most critical step is intelligence gathering and recon. We use our resources to gather as much data about our target as we can, while our analysts and security experts go through the information with a fine-toothed comb, extracting crucial intelligence. The more accurate the intel is, the more successful the assessment.
Once we have sufficient intel and the targets are marked, we move towards crafting the payload and formulating the plan of attack. We identify specific departments, user roles, and associated pretext scenarios that we’ll be hitting.
Once the plan is ready and all the pieces are in place, we begin the attack. Our analysts engage the target employees with carefully crafted emails with links or attachments, all of which are carefully designed to mimic authentic websites and services. As soon as the target downloads the malicious file or provides the necessary information through the link, we systematically begin compromising the target as per the scope of the assessment.
Once the attack is ceased, we formulate an assessment report, along with detailed documentation about the specifics of the attack to help your internal security determine the extent of the vulnerability. We also provide remediation strategies and suggestions that can be implemented to plug in the security holes. We can also provide training guides for your employees if needed.
Risksols also offers training sessions for your employees if needed to help them identify phishing attempts in the future and how to be more secure online. Along with recorded webinars, we can also conduct in-house training sessions as per the client’s requirements.
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